President Donald Trump has claimed majority control of more than 65 billion barrels of proven Venezuelan oil reserves for the United States, calling it “the biggest oil deal in world history.”
According to Trump, the arrangement was negotiated by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Venezuela’s interim President Delcy Rodriguez. The deal, revealed in a social media post late Friday, came “at no cost to the American Taxpayer” and would, in his words, “more than double” American oil reserves.
The structure runs through a private partnership. A White House official told CNN that Washington would hold “55% effective output of a new private joint venture that will be the second-largest private oil company by reserves in the world.”
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Backed by the US, Rodriguez granted a private company 100-year concessions for the oil fields, and that company operates as a joint project between the US government and a private operator inside Venezuela. More than half the value of the new giant has been locked in, the official said, split between equity ownership and guaranteed at-cost off-take, with the resulting supply directed toward the strategic petroleum reserve and the military.
Rubio framed the agreement as a “huge win for both the American and Venezuelan people,” projecting nearly $100 billion in private investment, support for thousands of high-paying jobs and a rebuild of Venezuela’s economy.
Timing is pointed. With the US midterm elections roughly two months out, the national average gas price sat at about $4.09 a gallon Friday, compared with $3.21 a year earlier. Six months of war in Iran have disrupted a fifth of the world’s oil supply, and US emergency reserves slipped below 300 million barrels in early August.
Though Venezuela sits on an estimated 303 billion barrels of crude, roughly 17% of global supply, dilapidated infrastructure holds its output to about 1% of the world’s oil. The Venezuelan government did not immediately comment.
